Prayers
by AnniePants
Summary: Scully searches for the strength to live. Post episode for This is Not Happening. My first fic R & R please. I'll make you pancakes!


"Prayers"

Immediately follows the events of "This is Not Happening"

_**This alone do we know:**_

**_we are here and we will die_.**

The desperate screams tore through her throat as if driven by a will of their own. She squeezed her hands into fists until her nails pricked the sensitive skin of her palms, and the warm blood began to gather in tiny crescent shapes. The pain and frustration inside made her head ache and an overwhelming dizziness engulfed her body. She pounded her fists on the dirt floor as she wailed, because she needed to destroy something that wasn't there; she needed to transform the spiritual pain to physical pain, so that in some twisted way it would be easier. _Jeremiah… oh God no please… Jeremiah please I can't…someone help me….God help me…pick me up off this floor I have to keep moving…_The chant repeated in her brain, pounded cruelly in her temples, and somehow she managed to haul her aching body off of her knees and onto her unsteady, wobbly legs. She knew that she had to move. That was her philosophy on life-even in tragedy, even at the bitter end, she would take matters-life, fate, destiny- into her own hands and she would move. Fast. Move fast. Run. Keep running. She stumbled over the people on the ground that were holding each other as they cried and prayed, waiting for the light to return for them this time. She ran into the closed wooden door and the force of her body threw it open. She didn't flinch at the sharp streaks of white pain that ran in circles from her shoulder to her elbow. Keep moving. Her breath came in ragged gasps as she ran down the hill and into the thicket of the trees. She shivered as her lungs sucked in the chilled Montana air. The hot tears that continuously bathed her cheeks seemed to transform to ice crystals. The gloom of the forest closed in as if she were drowning in a frozen lake. But there were lights ahead. Lights and shouting and sirens and familiar voices. Her boot hit a large rock, and she lurched forward and plunged to her hands and knees, ripping an ugly hole in her pants and breaking skin underneath. She did not react; she simply pushed herself to her feet and continued. The clearing where she left him was close, very close now. She didn't slow her pace; instead she pushed through the semi-circle of bodies with their stern postures and their cold, stony faces. She felt strong hands grip her arm, and winced at the pain, but did not turn. A familiar voice seemed to be calling out for her, begging her, pleading with her to stop- it was Doggett. Skinner was there too, but he knew to just let her go.

The crumpled body rested in a fetal position on the cold earth with someone's trench draped over him for the sake of dignity. She collapsed at his side and pushed him onto his back. _I'll save you…if They won't…if God won't…I will_. She tilted his chin back, forced his mouth open, and emptied her shaky breath past his lips. The once smooth and delicate lips were now cracked and cold. Miserably and terrifyingly cold. The familiar lush softness and musky scent had been stolen away. Someone was kneeling behind her; she could feel warm breath on the back of her neck. A gentle hand pressed against her shoulder, but she violently shook the touch away as she clumsily maneuvered herself to pump his chest.

"Oh God Dana, I'm sorry. I am so sorry. But you have to stop this. It looks like he's been dead for several hours. We can't bring him back," a tearful voice whispered in her ear, heavy with emotion.

"NO! FUCK YOU FUCK YOU ALL I'M GOING TO SAVE HIM…I PROMISED NEVER TO STOP!….there is no me without him……do you see? doyousee…"

The dreaded moment of realization seized her as she continued to choke out meaningless, detached phrases. There was nothing left to do, nothing to move toward, nowhere to run. She let her body fall limp, and felt a prickling numbness begin to settle over her from her toes to the crown of her head. Skinner held her then. He wrapped his strong arms around her body and rocked them both gently back and forth, their bodies huddled together on the cold wet earth.

_**Feelings are the unknowing of power:**_

_**from the unknowing of winter comes spring.**_

_**from deep saline waters of unknowing**_

**_comes the charge which drives life_.**

She hadn't wept and carried on like this since she was a little girl. She remembered falling from the monkey bars in the park when she was seven years old. It was like that fall had lasted for an eternity, her body tumbling and twisting and turning in slow motion forever waiting for the assault of the harsh cement. When the ground finally found her, she screamed and wailed as if her life were being sucked away. Bill Jr. cradled her in his arms and told her that the pain would stop soon and that he loved her and that everything was going to be alright. That was the only time she could remember him telling her he loved her.

Once again, she had fallen into infinity, but this time when she hit the ground there was no end to the pain, and nothing would be alright ever again. The world seemed to hurl past in a rainbow of dark colors while she remained utterly motionless. All awareness abandoned her body, and she could do nothing but scream until she felt that her throat might rip open and spurt blood. She vaguely felt herself being lifted from the ground by two sets of hands, and at some point she was lead to the backseat of a car and a blanket was wrapped around her shoulders. _But I was always the strong one_. The car moved for awhile, then when it stopped the door was opened, and Doggett and Skinner moved to either side of her for support and half-dragged her up the front stairs of the county sheriff's department and coroner's offices. Her vision darkened and she tasted the bitterness of bile in the back of her throat. Fortunately, she was able to break free of the two men and stumble on jelly legs to a nearby trashcan in time to vomit. When the painful heaves finally tapered away, the last bit of strength was released, and she collapsed into nothingness.

_**Anger, child of attachment**_

_**full of opinions**_

_**stays not long enough in the unknown**_

_**sees not what is going on.**_

Her muddled brain registered the pain and the aching, and the sensations slowly stirred her body to wakefulness. She remembered everything instantly; there was no grace period of mistaking the past several hours for a simple nightmare. Her heavy eyelids blinked and squinted unwillingly into the empty world. Somewhere close, a clock was ticking in a never-ending rhythm. As her vision focused, she realized she was lying on a hard couch in a dull brown office, and Skinner was sitting across from her staring at the wall above her head with glazed eyes. She tried to speak, but her throat was so raw and parched that all she could manage was a pitiful squeak. Skinner jumped at the interruption to the stillness and instantly moved to crouch beside her. He wordlessly offered her a mug of water and helped her sit up to drink.

"Walter…no autopsy. Nobody else is desecrating him. I won't let anyone touch him," she managed hoarsely.

"I know," he replied quietly.

"Where is he? I need to see him," she choked as the tears returned to glisten in her blue eyes.

"Dana, I don't think that.……" She embraced him with her eyes, conveying a spiritual message that words could not describe, and he understood. "Okay. Come with me."

Skinner held onto her forearm as if she were a small child as he guided her down the bare white hallway to the double swinging doors. He gestured for her to go on. She saw the tears in his eyes.

_**To hear without responding**_

_**to stay in puzzlement**_

_**not rush to understand**_

_**abide in the unknowing of chaos:**_

_**power and creativity gather.**_

The partners were alone in the room. He was lying on a cold metal table under the stinging fluorescent lights. A white sheet was shrouded over him. She squeezed her eyes tightly and drew a shaky breath as she curled trembling fingers around the sheet and slowly pulled it back to reveal his head and bare chest. Her tears dripped onto his pale neck as she leaned over him.

"Hi Mulder…it's me."

She gently massaged her palms over his chest in a futile attempt to restore the warmth that was gone forever. She traced her fingers delicately over the jagged red scar that ran the length of his sternum, and bent to kiss the swollen purple bruises at his collar bone. She tenderly touched the scars on his ashen face that was once so beautiful and full of expression. She rubbed her thumbs over his eyelids and silently begged for those mischievous hazel eyes to give her a playful glare just once more. There was dried mud caked in his hair and she thought about how much that would bother him, so she ran her fingers through it in an attempt to fix it. He was so cold. He hated being cold. He always said that he would choose 100 degree heat over Washington in December. She pulled the sheet up to his shoulders and removed her leather jacket and draped it over him.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to say…. I would give my life to just have you sit up and argue with me….You were…are…my Truth. But I think you knew that. Now, I…I have never felt so alone in my entire life."

As if to comfort her, there was a tiny flutter in her lower abdomen to remind her of a third presence in the room. She pressed her palm against her stomach.

"I'm sorry Baby. I'm so so sorry. So sorry…" _Sorry that you'll never know your father. Sorry that I'm not sure I can continue, even for you. Sorry that, at this moment, I would trade your life for his._

A memory came to her then of a time when she was in the hospital near death battling cancer. He came to her room late one night while she slept, crouched at her bedside, and wept. When his light sobs awoke her, she silently took his chin in her fingers and lifted his face up towards her so that she could look into his eyes. "Hold me," she murmured. He shyly draped one arm over her body and rested his head beside her pillow. "No. Really hold me. Next to me." He climbed into the hospital bed with her, wrapped his arms around her, and buried his face in her hair. When he thought she was asleep, he began to pray in a whisper. The self-proclaimed atheist prayed. "Please let her live…" He quietly begged for her life that night, because he knew that he could never live without her.

In the little white and grey room in Montana, she climbed onto the cold metal table next to him. She wrapped her arms around his lifeless shell and rested her head on his chest.

"I'm going to live Mulder. We're having a baby," she whispered in his ear.

Then she prayed aloud for the first time in years. And she asked God for the strength to live.

**_Let everything happen to you:_**

**_beauty and terror._**

**_Just keep going. _**

**_No feeling is final._**

**_Don¹t let yourself lose Me._**

**_Nearby is the country they call life._**

**_You will know it by it¹s seriousness_**

**_--Rilke_**


End file.
